


Of Hesitation

by lackadaisical (alasweneverdo)



Series: hpendurance one-shots [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alasweneverdo/pseuds/lackadaisical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily knows she has the final say. That’s exactly the problem; she can't get over that suffocating fear of making the wrong choice and being held forever accountable. Pre-canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Hesitation

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. It may, in general, be sort of nonsensical, as I'm pretty tired at this point.
> 
> Anyway, this is for the second round of hpendurance.  
> Prompt: Your character faces a tough decision, one that could affect the rest of their life.  
> Character: Lily Evans  
> Level of Comfort: hell

Hands clasped as if in prayer—and maybe it is prayer, though she can’t remember the last time she went to church—she focuses on the surface of the wooden table, staring at it until the grain warps and her peripheral vision turns fuzzy. When James squeezes her shoulder, she almost shrugs his hand off. She doesn’t need reassurance right now; she needs _proof_. She needs evidence pointing her toward the right decision so every path doesn’t feel like the wrong one.

 _I trust them all with my life,_ James keeps saying, like that’s meant to be comforting. She doesn’t point out that it _isn’t_ his life—it’s hers, Harry’s, _theirs_. James’s life isn’t just James anymore, and doesn’t he get that? She refrains from saying so, since he probably didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and now’s just not the time.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” says James, cutting into the silence like so many knives.

For a long moment, she tries to sort through her thoughts, to make sense of them. Finally, she says, “I was happy when we chose Sirius. Or—relieved, maybe.”

“But?”

“I’m not sure about Peter.”

Without looking at him, Lily can see the frown in his lips, the tightening of his jaw. She rushes to add, “It’s not that I don’t trust him. You know I just adore him, James. I do. But I don’t know if he’s…”

“Brave enough?” It sounds like an accusation. She doesn’t doubt that it is.

“ _Strong_ enough,” she says. “He’s—no, let me finish. I know what he’s been through, and I know what he’s done—for all of you and for the Order. But he’s _scared_. How can you look at him and not see how terrified he is? How can you expect him to stand face-to-face with V—with You-Know-Who?”

“They’d never suspect Peter to begin with,” he says.

She whirls around to face him at last. “Wouldn’t they? You really think they don’t have someone on the inside who knows the names of every single one of our friends? Someone who went to school with us and knows _exactly_ how loyal and devoted you always were to this group of yours, and—and that any of you would die for each other?”

“Including Peter.”

“Yes, right, on _paper_ —but it’s easy to play at heroism when it’s all hypothetical, isn’t it? You can make all the promises you want, but when the moment finally arrives and you’re faced with reality, and you see how awful that reality is—”

“So you want to go with the original plan and choose Sirius,” says James.

Lily deflates. “I don’t know,” she admits.

“Lily—” He lets out a long breath. “Sweetheart, I know it’s a difficult decision, but we still need to make it.”

“I know.”

“No matter what we do, someone might get hurt.”

“I know.”

A noise from the next room catches her attention—she always forgets _Muffliato_ doesn’t work both ways—and she leans back in her chair to peer through the doorway.

Sirius is holding Harry aloft, making his most ridiculous faces and blowing raspberries. Harry laughs delightedly and says his nonsense words—or perhaps, Lily thinks, it isn’t nonsense at all. Sirius always insists one certain sound is a damn near approximation of his name: _Baffuh_. “Imagine _Sirius_ is a bit hard for him, so Padfoot it is,” he said once. (Remus pointed out that it’s probably an attempt at _bathroom_ , which, really, is close enough to the same thing. At the time, Sirius was too busy cooing at Harry to pay him any mind.)

When Sirius lowers Harry down by inches and touches their noses together, Harry giggles even more. Sirius wiggles and scrunches his nose, growls playfully, snaps his teeth in a pretend bite. Then Harry thrusts out an uncoordinated hand and jabs his godfather in the eye, earning a yelp and indignant mutter in response.

Moments like these, Lily wonders if this has all been some elaborate prank and she’s been caring for Sirius Black’s baby the whole time. She doesn’t think she’d ever seen him smile as widely as he did the first time he held Harry, and even now, with all the tension and worry so thick in the air, looking at the two of them is like staring into the sun. She doesn’t doubt that Sirius loves her child every bit as much as he would if it were his own.

She tears her eyes away but doesn’t look back to James. Can’t.

After a long, long pause, she says, “Peter.”

The word descends like the judgment of God, like a death sentence. Maybe it is.

“All right,” says James. “I’ll let them know.”

When he leaves the room, Lily remains seated, staring blankly. She wonders if it’s the right choice, if it’s really for the best, if she’s thought things through all the way and come to the obvious conclusion, or—

_No matter what we do, someone might get hurt._

And when she thinks about it that way, she doesn’t see how she could be wrong.


End file.
